As many as 50,000 people climbed Slievenamon on this day in 1848 to show their revulsion at the devastation caused by the famine, having witnessed the harvest being exported while one million Irish people died from starvation.
The meeting was the brainchild of two Young Ireland leaders: Michael Doheny (from Fethard) and Thomas Francis Meagher. People made the ascent from every side of the mountain– from Ballingarry to Grangemockler to Fethard to Kilsheelan to Ballyneale to Cloneen and everywhere in between. Amongst the 50,000 were people from Tipperary, Kilkenny, and Waterford but also as far afield as Cork, Limerick,and Wexford.
At the summit,both Doheny and Meagher addressed the crowd under the newly unveiled tricolourthat Meagher had brought back from France. Doheny concluded his hour-long dress to the people by claiming that “the time for speechmaking is past. Let us swear to God that this year will not go by till Ireland is a free nation”. While Meagher told the crowd that “I stand here upon this lofty summit of a country,which, if we do not win for ourselves, we must win for those who come after us…. No man can be here today who is not prepared to brave the worst the foe can do.”
The meeting,which started around 4pm, finished at 7pm and Meagher and Doheny descended the mountain on horseback. Meagher was given rapturous receptions at Kilcash and Ballypatrick before making his way back to Waterford city.
The British authorities were alarmed by the Slievenamon meeting and took swift action. They suspended Habeus Corpus (a law preventing unlawful confinement) on 23 July 1848 and arrested and imprisoned many prominent political leaders while other Young Ireland leaders were forced to go on the run. Subsequent attempts at rebellion,including the so-called ‘Rebellion of the widow McCormack’s cabbage patch’ in Ballingarry on 29 July 1848 were easily supressed. The great enthusiasm and promise of the Slievenamon meeting would go unfulfilled.
Thomas Francis Meagher was arrested and charged with treason. He was sentenced to death on 23 October 1848 at Clonmel courthouse. This was subsequently commuted to transportation to Van Diemen’s land and he was never to see his native land again.
Doheny evaded capture and fled first to France and then to the USA where he continued to fight for the Nationalist cause and helped found the Fenian Brotherhood. He died in 1862 and is buried in New York.
Sources:
Sean Nugent article appearing in The Nationalist, 11 July 1998, p30.
